A Lack of Honesty
by mizutani asuna
Summary: Aaron is dating Call and all is well. When Aaron learns Tamara is his soulmate, though, Call won't speak to him. Will Call and Aaron defy destiny? Soulmate AU. Warnings: MAJOR Iron Trial spoilers. Slash. Rated for cursing.


**A/N:** So, for context, this takes place sometime in the future. In their Silver or Gold Year, when they're in their later teens, I expect.

 **Warnings:** Involves _several_ queer headcanons and outright slash. Don't like, don't read. As mentioned in the description, there is also minor cursing, so if that's not your thing, you've been forewarned. There are **major** Iron Trial spoilers, and a minor Copper Gauntlet spoiler is alluded to, though I don't reveal what it's referring to.

* * *

 **A Lack of Honesty**

Tamara Rajavi's parents had always told her, when you meet your soulmate, you'll just look into their eyes and you'll _know_. She hadn't realized at the time how _very_ literal they were being.

"Aaron, cut that out," she snapped. "It's not funny. You're creeping me out."

Call and Aaron stared at each other.

"Cut...what out?" they both said, at the same time. Unless she was talking about their blatant flirting (and they really hoped she wasn't), they didn't have any idea what Tamara was on about.

They were all just studying in the common room...weren't they?

"You know perfectly well _what_ , you stupid Makar! Stop it! And apologize!"

"Call, I'm sorry I offered to help you with your fire magic...?" Aaron said. He wasn't being sarcastic, but he really didn't know what Tamara was talking about. Did she want him to apologize for dating Call? Because as far as he knew, she didn't even _like_ Call. Well, not like that...

"Not that!" Tamara screeched. "Stop that...stop doing that weird thing with your eyes, Aaron. You look like a Chaos-ridden."

Having kept Havoc as a pet since Iron Year, Tamara figured she knew what she was talking about, and it was a good comparison: Aaron's eyes weren't coruscating like Havoc's did, but they _were_ changing colors. Blue, red, black, flat white—even when they went green, it wasn't the green Aaron's eyes were _supposed_ to be. It was an unnatural—and in Tamara's opinion, nasty—green.

"Call," Tamara tried, "Don't you see that? Doesn't it bug you?"

Tamara had a sick feeling in her stomach, that she could neither describe nor account for. Something was tugging at her from the back of her mind, but she couldn't dredge up the memory.

Call peered at Aaron, scrunching up his face in a way that Celia might've described as "cute", but which Tamara thought just made Call look like a monkey.

"Well?" Aaron said. He was pale and flushed, and it suddenly dawned on Tamara that her panic was probably bothering him more than he let on; Aaron _hated_ negative attention.

Call looked between Tamara and Aaron helplessly. He didn't want to call Tamara crazy or a liar, but Aaron's eyes looked fine to him.

"Maybe we should go get Master Rufus...?" he suggested, for lack of ideas. He couldn't help pitying Tamara (she looked really scared), and they _were_ friends. He wanted to help her, if he could.

"Yeah..." Aaron said slowly, "Let's do that. Tamara?"

Tamara blinked, still freaked out by the light show going on in Aaron's eyes, but she nodded.

"Yes," she squeaked.

"I mean, yes, let's do that," she said, in a louder voice. She crossed the room, passed the boys, and was out the door before either Call or Aaron had a moment to get up and follow her.

"So...I guess we're going to see Master Rufus, then," Call said, still feeling as dumbfounded as he looked.

"I guess we are," Aaron said, getting to his feet and helping Call up.

* * *

In the time it took the boys to catch up to her, Tamara had already been sitting in Master Rufus's office a good six minutes. Though she had been listening and nodding and making appropriate grunts to indicate she was _still_ listening, Tamara was in shock.

She hoped her face didn't show it, but the downside of knowing Aaron and Call all these years, was that her best poker face didn't have a hope of fooling them.

"S-s- _soulmates?!_ " Call sputtered. "But Aaron—he didn't say anything about...!"

Aaron looked not a little ashamed.

"...I did see it," he admitted. "But we've been studying for _hours_ ; I thought I was imagining it. Like seeing spots when you're tired, you know?"

"But Aaron can't be soulmates with Tamara! He's—and she's...! Master Rufus, are you _sure_ you didn't get it wrong? There's gotta be at least five other options, right? I mean, this is _magic school!_ "Soulmates" can't be the only explanation for having weird, glowy eyes that no one else can see! Right?"

Call was so panicked that he didn't notice he was cracking the floor of Master Rufus's office; though, truthfully, even if he _had_ noticed, he probably wouldn't have cared. His magic did whatever it wanted when he was upset, and nobody in the room expected him to rein it in within the next five seconds. They knew Call too well for that.

"Call," Master Rufus began, "I realize this may be hard for you to understand, but—"

Call didn't let him finish.

He ran from the room, using air magic to aid his bad leg (a trick he'd learnt in Bronze Year). He and his friends had been in so many crazy situations where that had come in handy, he barely needed to concentrate to make it work. He was still slow, but he could last for longer with the air pushing him forward.

"Call!" Tamara yelled.

But he was gone.

"Let him go," Master Rufus said. "You can explain the rest to him when he's ready to hear it."

* * *

The way Master Rufus had explained it, Aaron and Tamara didn't have anything to worry about: soulmates were platonic. When they asked if he was sure, he told them Constantine and Jericho Madden had been soulmates, and he was fairly certain that neither boy had been in love with his own brother.

He explained that people, being people, had a tendency to make a big fuss over absolutely nothing, and that that was how the whole "soulmates" deal had spun out of control in recent years. Of course, by "in recent years", he actually meant the last forty or so years, but that was beside the point.

It was true that everyone had a destined partner who'd always be there for them, but they weren't any more likely to fall in love with that person than with anyone else. That person was the best match for you in the sense that you'd always work well together, you'd never abandon each other, and so on. Some people _did_ fall in love with their soulmates, but that was actually a rarer occurrence than anyone wanted to believe.

It made for a much less romantic story, but it was the truth: dating your soulmate didn't guarantee you happiness. A soulmate was a guaranteed best friend, all your life; it was not anything else, and Master Rufus really wished "kids today" would stop getting so hyped up about it.

Tamara smirked a little, trying to imagine a younger Rufus, caught up in his own soulmate drama.

"So...I _don't_ have to date Tamara?" Aaron asked hopefully.

"You don't have to sound so _happy_ about it!" Tamara smacked him, but she was laughing.

"Ow," Aaron said, clutching at his arm. "That hurts!"

Tamara batted her eyelashes, all faux-innocence.

"The pain in your heart?" she said, sarcastically.

Aaron rolled his eyes.

"Yes, the pain in my heart, from knowing we'll never be together! No, Tamara, the pain in my fucking _arm!_ Did you have to hit me that hard? Are you sure you're really a girl?"

"If you're trying to insinuate I wouldn't be a girl if I didn't have a vagina—"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm sorry, okay?"

He meant it, too. He knew how sensitive Tamara was about cisnormative remarks; after Ravan became an elemental, Tamara had become extra-defensive about her other sister, Kimiya, who was transgender. She'd gotten really big into social justice the last two years, which had surprised (and at times, annoyed) Aaron, given her privileged background.

Master Rufus had taken the time inbetween their bickering to remove a pack of gummi worms from a drawer in his desk, one of which he was chewing on right now.

Aaron and Tamara glanced at each other, deciding that was their cue to leave.

"Um...thanks for the help," Tamara said.

"But we have to go study," Aaron finished, and he grabbed Tamara's hand and dragged her out the door.

* * *

As it happened, this was the wrong thing to do: Celia saw them, and she told Jasper, and that was how three weeks of rumours began. The soulmate business—despite Master Rufus assuring them it was not a marriage contract—got out, and everyone automatically assumed that meant they were dating now, and Call was avoiding them like the plague, so they never got a chance to tell him what was really going on.

"This is _worse_ than the time I became the Makar," Aaron complained. "I can't believe Call's _still_ not talking to us. I know he walked out before Master Rufus explained about it being platonic, but—"

Aaron gestured angrily, as if trying to grab words out of the air.

"Call's being stupid," Tamara agreed, "but he'll come around. He always does."

Tamara, Aaron thought, sounded like she was trying to convince herself as much as him. Jasper hadn't been talking to her, either, since the beginning of Tamara and Aaron's supposed "relationship", and having no company outside of each other was beginning to drive them both crazy, soulmates or not.

They wanted their friends back—and sure, Aaron was hoping Call was still willing to be more than friends, but if he wasn't, hey, he'd take what he could get. He just wanted the old team back together. Jasper might be petty because Tamara didn't return his feelings, but Call was a better person than Jasper was on his best days...Wasn't he?

Aaron shook his head.

"We have to talk to them, don't we?" he said, finally. "I mean, I like you, Tamara, but if I have to spend the rest of my life enduring the silent-treatment from the rest of our friends, I'll suck _myself_ into the void."

Tamara's expression was unpleasant—tired or just exasperated, Aaron couldn't tell—but she nodded. She had come out to Celia last year as aromantic; and since it had been the reason she'd turned her down, when she started "dating" Aaron, Celia had stopped talking to her.

 _And why wouldn't she?_ Tamara thought, feeling like banging her head against a wall would be the most cathartic action she could take right now. _She probably thinks I'm biphobic._ This "soulmates" shit was the _worst_.

Tamara glanced toward the door to Call's room.

"You talk to Call, I'll talk to Celia and Jasper? Maybe we can get this whole matter straightened out," she suggested.

Aaron looked apprehensively at Call's door, like he wasn't sure whether or not agreeing to Tamara's plan would get him killed. He liked Call—hell, he more than _liked_ him—but Call was the most stubborn person Aaron knew, and that was saying a lot, considering Aaron didn't seem to know anyone who _wasn't_ stubborn.

He ran his hand through his hair.

"I guess...?" he consented.

"Okay." Tamara took a deep breath. "Good luck, Aaron."

"You, too," he mumbled, though Tamara was already halfway out the door.

He sucked in a breath, and began to pound on Call's door.

"Call! _Call!_ CALLUM HUNT, I SWEAR IF YOU DON'T OPEN THIS DOOR—"

The remainder of his threat was lost when Call did indeed open the door, and Aaron had to practically perform gymnastics to keep himself from falling on his face.

"What?" Call said petulantly, like he was still twelve.

He didn't _sound_ twelve, though. Much to the surprise of both of them, Call's voice had ended up deeper than Aaron's, after puberty. It was something Call liked to brag about, since he was still shorter than all the girls in school. Even Celia was taller than him now.

"We have to talk," Aaron began, pressing his hand on the door to keep it open when Call, predictably, tried to slam it shut.

"I don't want to talk to you," Call said. He was obviously trying to sound angry, but he sounded tired more than anything else.

No, not tired, Aaron realized. _Deflated_. Well, Aaron reasoned with himself, he _does_ think you dumped him for Tamara...

"So, don't. But listen to me, Call—"

"Why should I?" Call burst out. "I know you're with Tamara, Celia told me, and I get it, you're soulmates now, or _whatever_ ," —he said "whatever" with as much contempt as he could muster— "but that doesn't mean I have to—"

 _"Oh, Call, would you SHUT UP?!"_

Aaron shoved Call out of his way, and slammed the door shut behind him. Call, stunned, didn't react when Aaron pinned him to the wall and got in his face. Normally, that would've driven him insane—normally, he would've kicked Aaron in the balls for a move like that—but he found he couldn't think straight.

It wasn't that he wasn't used to Aaron's temper—he'd seen it before, and he'd known for years that Aaron wasn't the perfect, goody-two-shoes angel everyone thought he was. He wouldn't have ever befriended Aaron, forget dated him, if that one facet was the sum total of his personality. No, that wasn't it.

Call could believe Aaron was angry with him. But he couldn't believe he had a right to be; it wasn't like Aaron cared about Call's feelings. He'd started dating Tamara the _second_ it turned out they were soulmates. Call had been shocked, but he'd expected...What had he expected? That Aaron would defy destiny for him? When he thought about it, that wasn't really Aaron's character. Maybe he hadn't wanted to be the Makar, but he had accepted it. He'd even come to enjoy it, at least a little. Maybe he viewed being Tamara's soulmate the same way...

Call probably should've known he was being paranoid. If Aaron hadn't wanted to date him, he wouldn't have dated him. Simple. But between the two of them, Tamara was the more competent one. She and Aaron had done _great_ in the Trial, and Call was just the kid Master Rufus had picked for their apprentice group as a _penance_. Sure, Call's control over his magic had improved, mostly, and he'd become a functioning member of the group in his own right. But even so, it'd only been a few years, and Call still hadn't rid himself of the fear that Aaron and Tamara were better off without him. This "soulmates" stuff just seemed to prove his fears were fact.

Call heard himself blubbering nonsense about how Aaron was a liar and how he and Tamara were gonna end up married, and how Call didn't care, not one single bit—

"You are so full of _SHIT_ , Callum Hunt!" Aaron yelled, and seeming to notice that he had Call very conveniently pinned to a wall, he did something that later, everyone who knew them would claim they saw coming. Call, however, did not see it coming, and so, when Aaron moved to kiss Call, Call's breath hitched in his throat and he instinctively kneed him in the balls.

Aaron cursed, doubling over.

"I didn't mean—that is—this is your fault!—dating Tamara and—"

Aaron braced himself, his fingernails digging into his knees, and spared a moment to glare at Call as he tried to catch his breath. Call immediately went silent, though Aaron couldn't tell if his face was red from embarrassment or indignation.

"I...don't want...Tamara," he breathed. "I want _you_ , Call."

* * *

His words were almost an exact recitation of what he'd said to Tamara about a thousand years ago, when Call had volunteered to be Aaron's counterweight.

"...What?"

"I said—"

"I heard you."

Aaron sighed in relief. Call had shut up; he was going to listen to him now, at least for the moment.

"I'm not dating Tamara," he began, but Call couldn't keep himself from cutting him off.

"Oh, you're not? Could've fooled me. You two have been spending every last second together for the last three weeks—"

"And _whose_ fault is that?! You were _avoiding me,_ Call!"

"Yeah, well, it doesn't matter, because—"

"If you would just _listen_ to me, I'm trying to tell you—"

"Maybe I don't WANT to listen! Maybe I _want_ to be alone forever, maybe I don't CARE if you and Tamara—"

Aaron grabbed Call by his shoulders, and for a split second, Call thought he was going to destroy him with chaos magic, but he didn't. He pulled Call into a tight hug instead, though in all honesty, Call thought this might kill him as well—it felt like Aaron was crushing his ribcage.

 _"Listen to me,"_ Aaron hissed in his ear.

Slowly, he let go of Call, and he distanced himself.

"I—"

Later, Call wouldn't be able to say what possessed him. He liked to think he wasn't _that_ impulsive (though Aaron, Tamara, and everyone who knew him would argue otherwise).

He pulled Aaron forward, pressing him into himself, and he kissed him as hard as he could. He was all out of words, out of other ways to convey this: "I don't want you to go." "I don't want you to be with Tamara." "I want you to be with _me_."

Call wasn't good at honesty. He hadn't been for awhile; not since his dad let him down, really. What happened with Alastair had hurt him more than anything else in the world...at least until now.

Ever since he'd heard the word "soulmate" that morning three weeks ago, he hadn't been able to deal with all the feelings that had bubbled up; he was afraid that if he spoke to Aaron, they'd come to a boil and just spill out. He didn't want Aaron to see him as weak, or needy—he was a guy, after all—but the two things, want and need, had become inextricable. He wanted Aaron, all right, and Aaron knew it; but he hadn't allowed himself to need him. Call didn't want to _need_ anyone.

It was an old fear, and probably a stupid one, but those were always the hardest to let go of. Elementary school, Drew's deception, the incident with his dad—everything that had happened, it'd all made it so much harder to believe in himself, to trust his own judgment.

He knew that Tamara, Master Rufus, Alex...and Aaron, cared about him. He knew that. Really. But ever since he'd learnt he was the Enemy of Death, he'd constantly been wondering if he was worth it. If they found that out...They wouldn't trust him. Certainly, if they knew, no one could...

"I love you," Aaron said.

Call choked on air. _Certainly, no one could love him_.

 _"What?"_ he gasped. Aaron never did remember that Call needed to breathe to live, the jerk.

"'I love you', that's what I was going to say, before you cut me off. I'm not in love with Tamara, Call, and she's not in love with me. I was trying to tell you before—Master Rufus told us soulmates are platonic. Tamara and I are eternally destined... _to be friends_. You idiot."

Aaron knocked on Call's head, like he was checking to make sure whether anything was in there.

"Call...?" Aaron said, when Call didn't say anything back. "Anyone home...?"

Call might've been thinking it, but he couldn't say it back. He wasn't as bold as Aaron; people were Aaron's forte, not his...It'd always been like this.

He couldn't say anything, so instead, he kissed him again, and hoped that conveyed his feelings.

 _I like you, Aaron._ He'd told him that when they were thirteen. Technically, saying "I love you" shouldn't be that different—it was a substitution of one stinking word—but if telling Aaron he liked him as a _guy_ and not as a friend, had been hard...Call didn't know how to say something with that much more weight behind it. Even if it was true, he didn't see how he could possibly tell Aaron that. It seemed to be voluntarily opening a gateway to losing him.

Luckily, his boyfriend was Aaron Stewart, and this was one of the things Aaron understood. He knew what Call needed from him, even if Call didn't always, and well, wasn't that _why_ Call loved him?

* * *

And so, when Tamara Rajavi returned from her successful mission of reconciling with Celia and Jasper, to a quiet common room with no sign of the boys, she had the good sense to go to her own room, and curl up with a book. She'd had a long couple of weeks, after all, and the _last_ thing she needed was an irritated pair of teenage boys on her case when she'd already gone the last three weeks not speaking to one of them.

Tamara figured, if Aaron had made up with Call, then the silence could be accounted for: they were making out in Call's room. She rolled her eyes. _Boys!_ Didn't they know they needed to study, if they were going to make it through this year's Gate?

Well, she supposed, maybe she could let them off the hook. Just this once, though. This damned "soulmate" business was exhausting. She wasn't looking forward to when Call met his, and this whole little drama repeated itself.

But for tonight, Tamara was going to mind her own business. She was going to enjoy the adventures of _Veronica Mars_. And if her idiot best friends wanted to kiss each other senseless, she was going to let them.

Because, honestly? She'd already had to deal with Jasper and his non-belief in aromanticism today. And if the last couple of years had taught Tamara _anything_ , it was how to pick her battles.


End file.
